In 2014, the Trust conducted an excavation within the Williams & Griffin store in the High Street at Colchester. This was a really remarkable archaeological site and we uncovered evidence of centuries of occupation, from the 1st-century Roman fortress – the first in Britain – to the 19th-century iron foundry and the domestic rubbish-pits of adjacent houses. The site produced a huge quantity of valuable archaeological evidence. We discovered the remarkable ‘Fenwick treasure’ here. The site also produced another treasure, and this is a remarkable assemblage of Roman foodstuffs. These were preserved by carbonisation, caused by the extreme temperatures within the town when it was destroyed by fire during the Boudican revolt of AD 60 when the native Britons rebelled against the Roman occupation of south-east Britain and burned the Roman towns of St Albans, London and Colchester to the ground.
The assemblage is very large and it includes a wide range of foodstuffs. These all derive from one room in the Roman house on the site which was destroyed during the Boudican revolt. We think that this was a utility or store room. The Fenwick treasure had been buried for safekeeping under the floor in this room. We know that the room contained a wooden shelf with foodstuffs on and Roman pottery vessels – amphoras and other vessels – which probably also contained foodstuffs, such as wine, fish sauce (garum) and olive oil. Some of the foodstuffs were kept on a wooden platter and in a sackcloth bag on the shelf. During the Boudican revolt, the shelf seems to have fallen down and some of the foodstuffs slid off the shelf and onto the floor.
The assemblage of Roman foodstuffs consists of grains, pulses, legumes, nuts, fruits, herbs and spices, and they are mostly in quite recognisable forms. More of the foodstuffs have recently been identified. The foodstuffs are: spelt wheat, gristed grain, emmer wheat, millet, barley, lentils, a possible broth mix, peas, beans, hazelnuts, grapes, figs, dates on the stem, lovage, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, white mustard seeds, and fenugreek. There are also some bones from a pig’s head. This is the first millet from Roman Colchester and the discovery of dates on the stem is fascinating. The Romans introduced a number of new foodstuffs to Britain, and some of these would have been imported while others were adopted for cultivation here. The dates in Roman Colchester must have been imported from the Mediterranean. Foodstuffs are a fascinating form of archaeological evidence and can provide a lot of information about trade and agriculture, as well as about food and culture.
We have excavated Roman foodstuffs and evidence of foodstuffs in Colchester before, such as rye, oats, anise, dill, poppy seeds, celery, olives, cherries, elderberries, raspberries, plums, sloes, pine nuts and walnuts, as well as animal products. However, this really remarkale assemblage represents the foodstuffs which were in the utility or store room of one house: we now know what the Roman people who lived in the house cooked and ate and we have retrieved their treasure, and the assemblage seems to tell some of the story of the people who lived here and who buried their valuables under the floor, at the time of the Boudican revolt in AD 60… The assemblage represents ordinary daily life in Roman Colchester and, remarkably, in a known year, and also the extraordinary event – the destruction of the town – which occcurred in that year.
This is such a remarkable assemblage of Roman foodstuffs that we have featured it on the front cover of our next magazine, which is published this week. Last week, we selected some of the foodstuffs to photograph for the magazine and we are now selecting samples of the foodstuffs to send to the University of Essex where they will be microscopically photographed. Archaeobotanist Val Fryer is studying the foodstuffs for our site report.
You can read the Roman recipes of Apicius online at http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Apicius/home.html : these include recipes which use lovage, mustard, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, and dates, for example. If you search for the word ‘Fenwick’ on this web-site you will find all our previous posts about this archaeological site in the blog, ie about the broken and burnt pottery from the Roman store room at www.thecolchesterarchaeologist.co.uk/?p=32458 .
The excavation at the Williams & Griffin store (now Fenwick) was supervised by Trust archaeologist Adam Wightman and he is currently writing the site report. The excavation was funded by Fenwick.
The images show Trust archaeologist Emma Holloway recently drawing the wooden platter; the wooden platter; Adam with some of the Roman foodstuffs and their modern equivalents here at the Roman circus centre last week; and some of the foodstuffs in detail, including the lentils, beans, peas and broth mix, two of the dates, and the bones of the pig’s head. The Roman dates are shown here without their stems. (The foodstuffs were photographed on modern dishes.) [Images to follow.]
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